Jeff Van Gundy resigned from the Knicks nearly 12 years ago and he hasn’t gotten over what he calls a “stupid decision.”
Van Gundy defended Clippers coach Doc Rivers, who ESPN personality Bill Simmons said quit on the Celtics, by bringing his own experience into play yesterday on ESPN…

Tim Hardaway Sr. is not only a former five-time All-Star point guard and hated member of the Heat. He’s also a Heat scout, and yesterday stated his son, Tim Jr., was undervalued in the draft.
That’s good news for the Knicks, who on Thursday night tabbed the younger…

If the draft shook out a certain way, North Carolina State 6-foot-9 combo forward C.J. Leslie could have wound up a Knick with the 24th pick. That’s how high the Knicks had him on their board. Surprisingly, Leslie went undrafted and the Knicks got him for nothing. The…

J.r. Smith, with his Knicks status blowing in the wind, caused a commotion among fans yesterday when he tweeted, “It was fun while it lasted…”
Did the sharpshooting free-agent guard preemptively announce his departure from the team less than 24 hours after the Knicks drafted Tim Hardaway Jr., a…

Zack Wheeler finally had his own locker stall along “pitchers row” Friday in the Mets’ clubhouse, occupying the cubicle that used to belong to injured closer Frank Francisco and, most recently, veteran reliever David Aardsma.

Like father, like son? Not in the Hardaway household. Even in a city that cuts former rivals and villains of the past no slack, it seems as if Knicks fans everywhere are quick to embrace the arrival of Tim Hardaway Jr., who was selected by the team with the 24th pick in Thursday night’s draft.

49 comments on “Knicks Morning News (Saturday, Jun 29 2013)”

On the Nets. I can’t believe how much I hate them now. When they were in NJ I never really did. Even the whole Fugazi thing and Kmart and JKidd destroying Marbury didn’t really provoke me. I guess it was because I saw ten years of ruin begin and then play out and didn’t really get mad to see the Nets piling on. It was just part of the ignominy of being a NYK fan.

Recently, with them coming to BKLYN and trying to claim the city for themselves, the big banner near MSG, they’ve become like the Red Sox in my mind. When Deron had the revenge game against Jlin I saw how arrogant he is (and how good he can be).

Now, with KG and Pierce I feel like they’ve destroyed any chance of brotherhood between the boroughs. I mean, I don’t hate NYM. I don’t follow them or root for them against NYY but I like them against anyone else. KG literally tries to hurt people and actually does (see Billups 2011, Melo last year, etc). I used to like him on the TWolves but now I just think you should rest your stars so he can’t put them on the injured list. He’s just fucking dangerous, especially when he’s losing (which he will be, if there’s a god).

Meanwhile, they’re a house of cards. Prokorov’s move is simply to give false hope and star power and put fannies in the seats with literally no hope to beat MIA. He brought in two guys with very little left in the tank. It’s an awesome PR move. Meanwhile, I can’t believe that titanic thief of a Russian oligarch was allowed to be an NBA owner in the first place. He’s probably got some issues from his past which may make the Madoff Mets look tame. I very much look forward to watching BKN crash and burn.

Since we didn’t draft one, we now have to turn our attention to backup centers. I ran a query to determine how many active NBA centers (or C-F types) have shot >33% from 3 on 50+ attempts. The answer: Frye, Harrellson, Hawes,Tolliver. Shouldn’t we be considering a backup C who we can park in the corner to provide space for Amare/Melo/Shump? Shump can take SGs off the dribble and his chances of finishing increase substantially if there’s no big waiting for him in the paint. And we know Amare would benefit considerably. Harrellson (.127 WS/48 in Knick year) could be had for the vet’s min and perhaps Phoenix might go for a White/Q(?) package or maybe even Camby plus $3m. Both Frye and Harrellson have DRB% comparable to Chandler. Don’t you think having this option could be critical to our success especially against teams like the Pacers and Bulls?

Zanzibar:
Since we didn’t draft one, we now have to turn our attention to backup centers.I ran a query to determine how many active NBA centers (or C-F types) have shot >33% from 3 on 50+ attempts. The answer: Frye, Harrellson, Hawes,Tolliver. Shouldn’t we be considering a backup C who we can park in the corner to provide space for Amare/Melo/Shump? Shump can take SGs off the dribble and his chances of finishing increase substantially if there’s no big waiting for him in the paint. And we know Amare would benefit considerably. Harrellson (.127 WS/48 in Knick year) could be had for the vet’s min and perhaps Phoenix might go for a White/Q(?) package or maybe even Camby plus $3m.Both Frye and Harrellson have DRB% comparable to Chandler. Don’t you think having this option could be critical to our success especially against teams like the Pacers and Bulls?

I don’t think Frye is medically cleared to play, due to heart problems. Could be wrong. I kind of like the idea of bringing Harrelson back, to be honest. He can spread the floor a little, but what always impressed me was his one on one post defense.

We obviously need to consider back up pgs as well, even if we resign Prigs. With that in mind, 2 pgs were NOT extended qualifying offers yesterday. The first was Eric Maynor. I used to like him a lot, but Im not sure if he has ever gotten back from his ACL. In all honesty, I have not seen him play a lot lately. Second was John Lucas III. I know that he is not that great, but boy has he shown his ass against the Knicks a few times. He can make shots, Not sure how well he runs an offense, but maybe that would be OK in a 2 pg system???

I like Maynor, but he’ll at least want to be a back up somewhere, not a 3rd stringer.
If we keep Prig, someone like Lucas is fine for a bench spot.
Maybe we can get Dalembert for the vet min?
There aren’t many stretch bigs available that are worth much. I would rather try and turn Amare into a stretch big.

I find it hilarious that when I suggested the Knicks draft Tim Hardaway Jr., let JR Bricks go, and bring in Brooklyn Net killer Nate Robinson, everyone here had something negative to say. Now everyone is ok with this pick, and now everyones saying they don’t care if JR leave HA!

Anyway… I don’t know why Grunwald keeps saying they picked “best available” when Tim was NOT “best available.” He was not even the best available wing!

Every major big board in America that’s available to the public had Rudy Gobert C and Jamaal Franklin SG/SF rated ahead of Hardaway. I think a lot of them were even rating Allen Crabbe and Erick Green ahead of Hardaway too (I’ll have to check).

I’m going to stop crying about this and hope they bring Nate back. Given JR’s performance in the playoffs, i’m not sure I’d be all that worried if he left. This of course depends on if I was a person who was sold on Hardaway and was certain that Nate would be coming back.

Your 6th man of the year award don’t mean spit in the playoffs. We need an explosive guard that won’t fold under pressure when it counts.

Andrei Kirilenko opted out of his contract today. This market is starting to look really good this year. Calderon, Mayo, Kirilenko, Millsap, Howard, Kevin Martin, Al Jefferson, JJ Redick, and a few other good players are all available in free agency. I’d assume Howard, Calderon, and Kirilenko are the only players interested in going to a potential contender, and the other guys just want to cash out.

It would take all three wishes from a genie and some extra Grunwald magic, but Calderon and Kirilenko should be on our radar. Especially Calderon.

I don’t think a backup center needs to space the floor, but it would be good to have one who was a decent passer from either post. I still think the most important thing is to get some additional rim protection.

For a point guard, I think you want defense, decision making and shooting. Worried more about somebody giving up too many turnovers.

Vinny L.: I’m going to stop crying about this and hope they bring Nate back. Given JR’s performance in the playoffs, i’m not sure I’d be all that worried if he left. This of course depends on if I was a person who was sold on Hardaway and was certain that Nate would be coming back.

I can’t think of more of a “Bad JR” type player than Nate Robinson. I guess you’re choosing to not remember this:

Meanwhile, I think JR should and will stay. Also, I think he’ll test our patience at times but he will continue on a positive trajectory if he plays for us. I think we’ll give him the multi year deal he covets and I think PHO and MIL are too smart to outbid us. If MIL replaces Monta with JR and gives him an appreciable portion of that salary it will be a lateral move for them at best and at worst they’ll have an unmotivated chucker with a bad attitude and a lot of years left. JR has the right role on the Knicks and can make a nice chunk also. HOU got burned on Lin. They basically got Ray Felton (worse, I’d say) for twice the price we paid for Ray Felton.

They say that the two best days with your boat are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. That’s JR to anyone but NYK.

Some potentially bad news. RealGM reports this: “With the New York Knicks set to decline his team option, James White will become an unrestricted free agent and has received interest from several other NBA teams, agent Bill McCandless told RealGM on Saturday afternoon.” I was under the impression (and all contract sites show this) Knicks had White on a 2-year deal and could cancel his contract at any time in the 2nd year immediately freeing up cap space and roster spot (the same for a trading partner). That to me is different from a team option where the club has to notify the player by a certain date whether it intends to pick up the option. Also, what’s the deal with QRich and Barron contracts? The ESPN Trade Machine allows you to trade both these players though other sites show them as UFA. Bottom line: I’m confused as hell! Ephus – or anyone else – have any contacts who know the real deal so to speak?

A friend of mine is a Celtic fan. She was inconsolable about Pierce and Garnett leaving. I sent her a jokey Facebook message that said, “Hey, while you guys are blowing up your team, can the Knicks have Rondo? We don’t have any draft picks to trade you since we’ve traded every one through 2068 but maybe you’re interested in a package based around a 40 year old Marcus Camby and the remaining 4 years on Steve Novak’s contract? Maybe you like Amar’e Stoudemire and his one sort-of good knee? Does a Ray Felton-Quentin Richardson-James White-Earl Barron package sound okay to you?”

The Knicks have NO ASSETS. Rondo is not coming here, period, end of story. We have the team we have plus whatever scraps we can find on the scrap heap.

JK47:
A friend of mine is a Celtic fan.She was inconsolable about Pierce and Garnett leaving.I sent her a jokey Facebook message that said, “Hey, while you guys are blowing up your team, can the Knicks have Rondo?We don’t have any draft picks to trade you since we’ve traded every one through 2068 but maybe you’re interested in a package based around a 40 year old Marcus Camby and the remaining 4 years on Steve Novak’s contract?Maybe you like Amar’e Stoudemire and his one sort-of good knee?Does a Ray Felton-Quentin Richardson-James White-Earl Barron package sound okay to you?”

The Knicks have NO ASSETS.Rondo is not coming here, period, end of story.We have the team we have plus whatever scraps we can find on the scrap heap.

preach my brother. when you constantly spend future assets, you get in this position. good thing Donnie walsh gave up those first rounders with Jeffries to get t-mac and open up cap space for lequeen

The Knicks have NO ASSETS.Rondo is not coming here, period, end of story.We have the team we have plus whatever scraps we can find on the scrap heap.

Maybe not as much a long shot as y’all might think. First Celts are looking to trade Rondo – no way they want a mercurial bizarre personality like him to be the leader of a young team. Second, there’s time to insert Rondo into the Nets trade making it a 3-way. Third, the Celts want to put a decent team on the court the next couple of years while laying the groundwork for the future. So Celts might take Felton/Chandler/2 first-rounders for Rondo/Lee/Wallace. In other words, the key may be not our junk but how much of their junk we’re willing to take in. Presuming Rondo is recovered, I like the deal because I think Chandler is overrated and Lee/Wallace would be fine off the bench.

Sam’s a head case and he and Rondo on the same team would give me pause. But keep in mind we wouldn’t need to sign JR so we’re only really netting one head case! And Sam did have a higher DRR and ORR than Tyson last season. Maybe I’m nuts but I like Harrellson because he’s young, can spread the floor, and rebound. Imagine open lanes for the speedy Rondo and Shump. And Amare PnR or post-up where Hibbert/Noah won’t be able to hang in the paint. Maybe we could lure Andersen offering the starter job. I’d be happy with Dalembert/Jorts or Andersen/Jorts. Or something like Andersen/Kenyon.

It’ll be interesting to see what becomes of Rondo now without the super friends. Maybe he’s not so good, maybe he’s a point guards Danny Green, living off of the largesse of future HOFer’s.

As to swinging a deal, we don’t have bullets but I’d save our bbs for someone who I haven’t hated for the better part of a decade and someone who you need to chase over a screen, not necessarily in that order.

jon abbey:
I wish there was a GM who believed in the silly Berri world, so we could trade guys like Chandler there and get quality returns back. of course there isn’t, even the dumbest GMs know better.

The Tyson Chandler issue at this point is just people’s way of insulting each other.

Jowles: Tyson Chandler is one of the greatest players of all time!
Abbey: Tyson Chandler is worthless and has no value!

no, it’s what I actually think. he had a mostly horrific year last year, and it took most people most of the season to notice. if we surrounded him with four great offensive players, he could be an asset on offense, but that is the only way, as if you keep a body between him and the basket, he has zero chance of scoring. of course if he was playing at DPOY level on the other end, his narrow skill set on offense wouldn’t matter, but he so rarely did that last year. if he is a DPOY-level player currently, then Amare might as well be a second-team all-NBA guy, that was almost as recent and seemingly equally irrelevant.

A player who averaged a double-double last year was mostly horrific? The player who led the league in TS% 3 years in a row? What? I’m all for saying that his numbers overvalue him. That’s reasonable. But to say Tyson Chandler had a horrific year? Really?

as ruru has explained many times, his TS% is just a product of him only taking shots close in and actually hurts the team (plenty of other big men are just as efficient with shots close in). he wasn’t an especially good rebounder considering he was the only big on the floor for NY most of the time, but the main thing is that his basket protection was non-existent for long stretches of the season.

so maybe ‘mostly horrific’ is an overstatement, but it’s not an overstatement to say that K-Mart, a waiver wire pickup, was an instant upgrade for the first 20 or so games he got real minutes for.

I can’t believe I’ve heard people here advocating for Sam Dalembert. That guy is a bum. He was getting DNP-CDed last year so the Bucks could give his minutes to Ekpe Udoh. He pretty much openly quit on the Bucks last year, talking about going to the Heat DURING the Heat-Bucks series. He sucks. He’s never been on a decent team his entire career and it ain’t just because of bad luck.

The mavs want to attract Howard with a top pg to pair him with. I think that’s why they were looking to dump the #13. They were going to target Jennings, I believe, but obviously Rondo would be the better companion. I wonder if they can fit both rondo and Howard (but imagine that, of there is a will, there is a way).

He really hedged to help guards on screens. I think that’s why he was out of position so much. Also, all the switches constantly took him away from the rim. On offense, I would like to see him take at least one or two 15 footers a game. Just to keep the defense honest. Mostly, I think he’s a key piece. We can win a chip with him, Melo, JR, Shump and Either Amar’e getting healthy and finding a role or Amar’e leaving and getting us a better fitting piece. Trading Chandler for a PG creates a problem to solve another problem and I think good center play is actually harder to find.

I do like KMart and hope he’ll come back. He had good foot speed to be able to recover when helping our guards.

jon abbey: as ruru has explained many times, his TS% is just a product of him only taking shots close in and actually hurts the team (plenty of other big men are just as efficient with shots close in). he wasn’t an especially good rebounder considering he was the only big on the floor for NY most of the time, but the main thing is that his basket protection was non-existent for long stretches of the season.
so maybe ‘mostly horrific’ is an overstatement, but it’s not an overstatement to say that K-Mart, a waiver wire pickup, was an instant upgrade for the first 20 or so games he got real minutes for.

Well said danvt.
Let’s not forget that Chandler had very little rest all year, with no real back up, and played through all kinds of nicks to the tune of 33 mpg. At age 30. Hibbert by comparison averaged 28 mpg.
Shit, we need another center to bring into Woody’s circle of trust.

God, Jeremy Lin isn’t that good, but I’d take him over Jennings for sure, especially since Jennings will probably get more than the $10m/year Lin will average over the next two years. Rondo is definitely better than Lin, but if Felton is, let’s say, the 20th best PG in the league, then Jennings is probably 18th or 19th.

max fisher-cohen:
God, Jeremy Lin isn’t that good, but I’d take him over Jennings for sure, especially since Jennings will probably get more than the $10m/year Lin will average over the next two years. Rondo is definitely better than Lin, but if Felton is, let’s say, the 20th best PG in the league, then Jennings is probably 18th or 19th.

I don’t think any GM in the league would agree with Lin>Jennings. Brandon is an idiot, but a talented one that maybe could improve in the right system. Not for 10 Mil if course

Lin was abysmal in the playoffs and started off the season terribly, but in between he had a pretty solid season. From the November 23 game against the Knicks through the end of the regular season, Lin put up these numbers:

.555 TS%
.510 eFG%
.356 3PT
29.4 AST%
18.7 TOV%

Not bad really. I know everybody wants to, but I wouldn’t write Jeremy Lin off just yet. Yes, he sucked in the playoffs, but so did JR Pipe, and everybody seems to want him back.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
I can’t wait to see what 53 TS% center we get to replace that talentless sack of shit we’ve got in the middle right now.

Trade him! 7’1? DPOY centers who set all-time efficiency numbers are a dime a dozen.

Don’t understand why Jowles’ bow tie is all crooked since Rondo had a WP48 of .211 in 2011-12 and Dalembert’s was .201 last season. Rondo always seems to rise to the occasion in the playoffs where Tyson’s been mostly a no-show. I feel really confident that Rondo/Melo/Amare/Shump would deliver in the playoffs.

JK47:
I can’t believe I’ve heard people here advocating for Sam Dalembert.That guy is a bum.He was getting DNP-CDed last year so the Bucks could give his minutes to Ekpe Udoh.He pretty much openly quit on the Bucks last year, talking about going to the Heat DURING the Heat-Bucks series.He sucks.He’s never been on a decent team his entire career and it ain’t just because of bad luck.

Woody’s forte is handling eccentric personalities so Dalembert on a real contender in NYC under Dr. Woodson’s psychiatric care should allay your fears. Most worrisome is that Melo is not really a leader (not his personality) and there will be a void in this respect as Kidd probably filled that role last season.

I hear Cope agent talk about loyalty and it maybe really how he feels if the offers are close but what if he gets 4-4.5 million from multiple teams. Would he agree to a S&T to a certain team to allow the Knicks to get something back. A S& T to N.O. would be nice if they could send Vasquez to NY.

There’s no way Cope gets the Knicks anything in a sign and trade since the only way he’ll leave the Knicks is if another team outbids the Knicks. And if another team outbids the Knicks, they are not allowed to match the offer (since the Knicks are over the luxury tax apron, they can not use the MLE, therefore they are not allowed to use the Gilbert Arenas rule to keep Cope), so it would not work. A sign and trade can only work if you can yourself sign the player to the contract in question.

Two interesting guys for vet minimum deals – Omri Casspi and Greg Stiemsma. Neither are all that good, but as back of the bench guys, they could be interesting. And NYC would go nuts to have an actual Jewish basketball player.

I think it is his contract as much as anything. He’s due to make nearly $7 million next season. Turner’s problem is that he is a shooting guard who can’t shoot. Other than that, he actually has a lot of talent. He’s an excellent defender. But, well, yeah…if you can’t score at all as a shooting guard, you’re not going to find much work in the NBA except for an off-the-bench defender and for that role, $7 million is kind of nuts.